on several trips we have caught crawdads and ate them for a late night snack. it is pretty easy to do at night, just shine your flashlight on rocks in the water and sooner or later you will find some. they are easy to cook, just drop them (live) into boiling water, wait for them to turn bright red, peel the tails and enjoy. (note: you have to catch about a dozen good size crawdads per person for this to even be worthwhile.) some people think its a delicacy to bite the eyes and suck the juice out of the body cavity, but i've never tried this.

anyway this makes me wonder if it's legal to harvest crawdads in the bwcaw. if anyone knows, please get back to me.

kclamken

What a strange thread to start... I like it.

I find myself willing to eat a lot of strange plants, fungi, and animals.. Cattails are fantastic!

I have eaten crayfish also.... just the tails and claws if I can find enough meat. Sucking out the body doesn't appeal to me... the "yellow stuff" doesn't taste very good.

I would follow the DNR rule of thumb...

Per the Fishing Regulations.

You must have a valid MN DNR fishing license.... or be under 16.

Crayfish.
Your allowed to take and possess up to 25 pounds of crayfish for personal use…. Season is April 1 to November… not allowed to sell them (without a permit)…. Or transport them to another body of water (I don’t think that includes a pot of boiling water)

Hex

so whats the worst animal you have ever eaten?

i try to maintain the try anything once attitude, and i've tried some rank stuff and some pretty good stuff.

possum - sucks
breaded and fried rattlesnake - tastes like chicken
squirrel - kinda dark and stringy, not real tasty
buffalo burger - to dry for me
breaded and fried turkey balls - pretty good actually, reminded me of fried mushrooms
breaded and fried beef balls - pretty good, a little rich for me
bald eagle - just kidding
raw deer heart - not good at all, too salty
frog legs - five stars
raccoon - not the best
alligator snapping turtle - pretty good

this makes me wonder if there is a mushroom harvest in the BWCA. we get alot of Morel mushrooms around here and they are excellent
it seems as if it might be too cold in MN for mushrooms

also, we always cut the cheeks out of pike and eat them, i guess just cause red snapper cheeks are considered a delicacy or something. they aren't too bad, similar to a scallop

If you plan to make a meal out of crayfish bring along some "Old Bay" seafood seasoning. Try to steam them if possible and sprinkle a bunch of the seasoning on them before you do. If you have to boil them just dump it in the water and keep some handy for dipping before you chomp on them.

I would suspect the black morels grow up there just fine. I haven't found any but my "environment" here is similar and they grow here... I wouldn't expect to find yellows there though. I have in the past found bolete's and lobster mushrooms in the B-Dub and would suspect that chantrelles are also there.

All game food aside;
The worste was mussles and freezedried scrambled eggs :(
I still dine/browse on fiddleheads, cattails, and largeleaf aster.

I too filet out cheek meat.. I've been know to filet out and cook the roe to eat. I'll fry the whole gutted trout and pick everything... eyes....

Blood sausage... I don't know if I'll do that again.

Hex in da UP eh

Worst animal I have ever eaten? Friendly Flies! Without a doubt.

TB

Nice Bog, LOL!
How about anything with DEET on it?

I can't wait to try the Crawdads!
On my first BWCA trip, I found fresh-water mussels(?) and boiled a pot full.

Yuck!

I have often wondered since, if letting them sit in clean water through the night would have allowed the purging of any "lake-taste". Then a smart toss in some wine and garlic...

I love those little critters and eat them every chance I get. The easiest and best way in my mind to eat them is what prairieaug suggested, steamed or boiled w/ Old Bay seasoning. The only problem is my overwhelming desire to dip them in butter. And I don't have enough room in my pack for a cow, which is what it would take to keep enough butter around for six or eight people to eat steamed crawdads for five nights. I also make a sort of seafood chowder/gumbo soup w/ them.
The flashlights around the rocks trick works well, but can take away alot of campfire time. So I bring along a piece of mesh about threee feet by three feet and make a little "trap". It's fun to build and baited with some waslleye guts works like a charm.
Dave

yes there are morels here lots of them if you know where to look.
ive gotten around 25 pounds this year so far.
got the dryer goin full time.

Tell me more about eating cattails. I'll try anything once.

OK... Any edible plants book will tell you it's all edible. (The cattail plant)

Be aware that there is a plant that grows with the cattails... the wild iris. THEY ARE POISONOUS! Make sure you familiarize yourself with both of them. Young plants tend to look alike. Cattails are more round at the base and iris are more oval. If there is any question, throw it out.

If you find a young plant (doesn't have to be young, they are just more tender) and pull it up, the inner base of the stalk will be tender. You may have to peel away some of the outter layers depending on plant age. I cut that up and use it on salads or eat it as is... kind of cucumber/celery like. Some people cook it. I like it raw.

To root tuber is similar in texture and flavor but kind of a pain to dig up... See an edible plants book for methods to prepair.

The actual cattail flower is edible while green. Early season before the cattail flower emerges from it's green leaf wrapping it can be removed, boiled and eaten as corn on the cob. Very edible when young but as it ages it gets too fibery.

But since you are not to destroy any vegitation in the BWCA, you would never do this there.

1) Crawdads are great. As a kid my dad and I would catch 5 gallon bucketloads of them with a seine net (in a secret location of course.) We would have a crawdad boil for neighbors and friends.

2) Cattails. Yup ate those as a kid too. Mom went through a Euell Gibbons (sp?) phase and we tried to make flour out of the roots to make bread.

3) Worst food ever. Sea urchins. Had them at a sea side stand in Korea. They look like big wads of orange flem. But they don't taste as good.

Anyone willing to share more information on the crawdad traps?

I had a friend who went to Blackstone lake years ago. The entire crew only caught two fish so they made a chowder with fish, crawdads and in desperation a bunch of the fresh water clams.

Are the fresh water clams good to eat? How would you prepare them? Are they safe to eat? I'd hate to spend my only week in Quetico over a 6-8 inch hole more than 150 feet from the shore.

I am not sure how safe they are. I know mollusks, clams, oysters, etc. are especially prone to high levels of mercury build up in their tissues. I would not eat many, if I ate any at all, before exploring the issue further. Check out websites etc on the subject. Maybe MN DNR has information.

Just returned from Basswood Lake and dined on crawdads and freshwater clams.

Had a hard time gathering up enough crawdads to make it worthwhile. Even after sorting out the big ones there was barely a tiny shrimp of a tail left. I battered these up and fried them. They tasted like popcorn shrimp, but it sure was a lot of work. I bought a collapsible trap too, but only managed to catch a few.

I ate freshwater clams every night I was there. My friends thought I crazy. The trick, I learned, is to boil them out of their shells until the meat falls out from the clam shell. Then move them to another pan. Those clam shells are nasty and the boiling water pulls out the lake taste. I sauteed them in butter and garlic ~ a little chewy, but very good. The smaller ones are better. Large ones are really chewy. I also breaded about a dozen and fried them up after sauteing them. Might good too. And I didn't get sick after three days of eating them. I made sure to cook them well though in case of Guardia.

Interesting topic. I have eaten crawdads before but not in the BWCA... thank you for bring it up though, I'll have to try it on my next trip this summer. Are crawdads present in most lakes on the shallow shores?

Never experienced anyone eating the crawdads in the BWCA, but I had a teenager on a Scout trip in '02 who gathered a bunch of clams and fried them in Squeeze Parkay. I don't care for most seafood myself, but he said they compared well to what he had eaten before except he didn't rinse them well enough to get rid of all the sand! As far as Mercury, I don't see how one meal could poison you but I wouldn't eat that kind of thing all the time!

What lakes in the BWCA have you guys had luck catching crawdads? I absolutely love em but it isn't worth spending time trying to catch them unless you can get more then a few.

I've caught one or two crawdads in the BWCA. The best way to eat them is to place them on a hook and cast them out into the water. Hopefully you'll be eating a nice big trout instead of a yucky little crawdad! :-)

Is there any DNR rule against using the crawdads as bait?

The new '06 MN fishing regs are available at the MN DNR site...
You can't transport crayfish from infested waters, they may only be used as bait on the water they were caught on, you may posess up to 25 lbs of 'em longer than 1" for personal use (good luck), and you can't use them as bait on the St. Croix scenic river way or in Voyageurs Nat'l park.

25lbs... lol. I don't think you'd have to worry about catching over 25lbs. Anyone been to any lakes that have an especially high amount of crayfish?

For all you mussell consumers - this was taken directly from the MDR site:

"The state of Minnesota does not allow the harvesting of mussels from inland waters and allows only limited commercial harvest of a single species of mussel from the Mississippi River along the border with Wisconsin. A special permit is required to legally harvest mussels from this portion of the Mississippi River."

So just fyi. As a general rule of thumb I'd suggest not harvesting anything for consumption unless you've specifically found in the MN wildlife code where it tells you about the seasons, restrictions, harvest limits - as an example what if it were in fact legal to harvest mussels (which it's not by the way), but there was a length limit on them, or a slot limit. What if like it said up top to possess or harvest mussels you need a special permit, maybe it's only available to residents, maybe there's a lottery, how would you know?Enjoying an exotic piece of table fare is not, in my opinion, worth the fines or confiscation of your stuff if a ranger happens to walk by and wonder what it is you're over there boiling....but that's just me, and I'm funny about staying legal :)

I have to say, we had no idea it might be illegal. I certainly won't let any Scouts on future Troop 1 trips harvest mussels unless we read in the regulation book (always available where you get your fishing license) that it's permitted. I'm equally "funny" about staying legal, I want to preserve the resources as well as set a good example for the youth I'm leading.

We too opened up a couple clams looking for pearls, before we realized it was illegal. Good for you Mark. I won't be doing that again. I'm with you on the keeping everything legal point.